Monday post-practice update: Mariota and the knee

Oregon quarterback Marcus Mariota had his weekly Monday meeting with the media, but instead of facing questions about the Heisman Trophy as he did in recent weeks, he got mostly questions about his knee.

Mariota played with a knee brace against Stanford and was helped off the field after he was hit hard and fumbled. He acknowledged after the game his knee was “banged up”, but said Monday he is playing against Utah on Saturday “for sure”,.

“I feel pretty good,” Mariota said of his body in general. “It feels better than last week so that is always a positive thing. After Stanford, I had a couple days off to be able to relax and get off my feet and that made me feel better.”

Mariota said he practiced fully on Monday with the knee brace.

He was asked if the knee is an issue: “Not at all,” he said.

Is he 100 percent?: “That’s something I can’t talk about.”

Reminded he could have said yes, it is 100 percent, Mariota said, “I know.”

Mariota was also asked if he would pull himself from the line-up if his knee injury was worse.

“If it gets to that point, I will make that judgement,” he said. “I have been taught my whole life not to show weakness and I’m not going to fade away from that.”

Mariota finished with minus-16 rushing yards including sacks and only chose to run on three plays, but said he should have run more.

“Looking back at the film, yeah, there were times when I should have taken off. I will just learn from it. My knee is what it is. It is not an excuse and I’m not going to let it be an excuse.”

Oregon coach Mark Helfrich was asked if he would sit Mariota if he felt it was necessary due to injury.

“We’re not going to quote-unquote put him at risk,” Helfrich said. “We have a lot of confidence in those other guys, so if it gets to that point, we have a lot of confidence in them.”

Oregon coach Mark Helfrich said

Steve Mims covers Oregon football, men's basketball and baseball for The Register-Guard. He has been a sportswriter at the paper since 1999 and covered high school sports while also reporting on Oregon football in the Rose Bowl and Fiesta Bowl as well as men's basketball during their Elite 8 run in 2007 and trip to the Sweet 16 in 2013.